1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to aryl-substituted acyclic enediyne compounds, in particular 6-aryl-hexen-1,5-diynes and 1,6-diaryl-hexen-1,5-diynes, which are found to have anti-tumor/cancer cell activities, and the uses of said compounds in the manufacture of pharmaceutical compositions.
2. Description of the Related Art
A series of alkaloids containing enediyne cores which were isolated from Streptomyces, have a manifold of biological activities (Walkers, S.; Valentine, K. G.; Kahne, D. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1990, 112, 6428; Dark, L., Iwasawa, N., Danishefsky, S., Crother, D. M., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 1991, 88, 7464; Povirk, L. F.; Goldberg, I. H.; Biochemistry. 1980, 19, 4773; and Kappen, L. S., Goldberg, I. H., Nucleic Acid. Res. 1978, 5, 2959) owing to the generation of radicals. Several biologically active synthetic enediynes are also observed in the formation of radicals. However, besides formation of biradical intermediates, little attentions has been paid to other feasible reaction modes by which enediynes could act and the relative biological activities that enediynes could exhibit, in spite of reports of novel biradical reactions that have begun to surface (Wendi, D. M.; Kerwin, S. M. J Am. Chem. Soc. 1997, 119, 1464; Tarli, A., Wang, K. K., J. Org. Chem. 1997, 62, 8841; and Xu, S. L., Moore, H. W., J. Org. Chem. 1992, 57, 326).